turn of the wrist, skillfully avoiding the high underbrush,
the overhanging limbs. The flies swung out
and dropped softly on the water. On the second
cast he caught a trout -- a silvery, gleaming shape
flecked with vermilion and black, shaded with mauve
and emerald and maroon.

In a shallow reach he waded, forgetful of his
clothes. He caught another trout, another and another,
stringing them on a green withe. He cast
indefatigably, but with the greatest possible economy
of effort; his progress was all but soundless; he
slipped down stream like a thing of the woods, fishing
with delicate art, with ardor, with ingenuity, and
with continual success.

The sun disappeared in a primrose void behind
the darkening mountains; the hush deepened upon
the valley, a hush in which the voice of the stream
was audible, cool -- a sound immemorially old, lingering
from the timeless past through vast, dim
changes, cataclysms, carrying the melancholy, eloquent,
incomprehensible plaint of primitive nature.

Gordon was absorbed, content; the quiet, the
magic veil of oblivion, of the woods, of the immobile
mountains, enveloped and soothed him, released
his heart from its oppression, banished the fever, the
struggle, from his brain. The barrier against
which he still fished was mauve, the water black; the
moon appeared buoyantly, like a rosy bubble blown

[[114]]

p113 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p114w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p115

v?